Saturday, May 20, 2006
11:24 PM

Work at Tuas

After enuf of playing for 1 mth after exams, last week worked for 2 days at Joo Koon Circle, kinda part of Tuas I tink. This week started work at Tuas Lane. Quite interesting, cuz I nv worked in these kinda places before. It's actually a production plant, with the office on the 2nd floor. The envt is very diff from my previous workplaces as well. I can wear casual everyday, and everyone is Chinese-speaking. Quite many Msians as well, perhaps by coincidence. Cuz a couple of them are from NTU, happened to be Msians and doing vacation jobs, while some engineering students having their industrial attachments. Can feel my Chinese becoming very song-like alr. Very long nv spoke so much Chinese the whole day oso, cuz usually in prev workplaces and sch, spoke more English than Chinese. So it was quite funny when I spoke to a colleague totally in English abt a prob, then she replied totally in Chinese. I felt super paiseh, cuz every1, even the managers speak Chinese (or Hokkien among themselves). I suppose u can't really speak too good English in companies like that for effective communication. After all, u gotta communicate with the plant supervisors and store managers. So gotta start switching back to Chinese mode, if not will feel out of place.

Tink my manager very zai. She's a damn interesting person. Speaks at like 10,000 decibels at all times, drives at 30kph, luffs so loud the whole main office can hear, and very energetic even when she complains that she's very tired. I've nv seen her not alert or not confident before. She speaks super bad engrish, but she's damn capable la I feel. The whole store and pple at both production plants r scared of her, cuz she's the loudest person in the whole company, and very very assertive. In fact, I tink she's the loudest person I've ever known. Haha. But she's a damn nice person. She'll scold, is demanding, but reasonable, and we dun take offence at all.

Well, finally got to see how pple practice wad I learnt in MA, FA and AIS, such as ERP (Economic resource planning), cash reconciliation and JIT (Just In Time system), cuz if work in big companies will nv get to experience these first-hand. Will only be at the first end of the database. In small companies like this, we baogaliao, from the job/work orders all the way to closing of monthly materials/ finished goods/ WIP/ A/P/ A/R, etc accounts, and then go whichever dept needs us - materials, production, planning or finance. Gosh. The files very greasy. Yikes. Cuz from the machining plant, so kena stained by the grease for the metal parts being polished.

OT-ed for 3 days alr, and more OTs to come. This coming week is closing of accts! Gotta do a lot of problem-solvings, e.g. for the discrepancies for the recorded finished gds inventory and the physical stock in the store. Wah lau, gotta go count store, not easy lehz. And then gotta make up no to make them match. Argh!

Anyway there was this article in the NewPaper a few days ago by an NUS student who had an exchange prog in SMU criticising the SMU pedagogy. Hmmm, a lot of pts raised by her juz didn't make sense to me at all. She mentioned that the pedagogy had not been living up to her expectations which arose from the promises made by the active marketing. I'm not sure abt that. In the first place, one doesn't expect to go to a sch that promises A-students and expects to be an A-student without working hard towards that goal. The sch merely provides a suitable envt (etc), with the help of the profs and the students to achieve the particular goals. So if the prof is gd, the system in place, and the students dun react positively, nothing will come out of it. She mentioned that she learns more thru a 2-hr lecture where the lecturer juz imparts all the knowledge than a 3-hr seminar where students have to contribute to take away more things. Having students to contribute and the inter-disciplinary discussions thus made her more confused as well. Shud she blame this on the pedagogy or herself for her inability to integrate wad she learnt from other courses into the particular module? Perhaps this experience led her to find out that she's not suited for this sort of pedagogy and not to generalise that such a pedagogy is not conducive for students to learn. It's possible she kena those profs who r not so gd in inducing active and productive class contribution, but i'm quite sure that out of all the modules she did, she muz have met at least 1 good prof rite? So I guess it's juz her attitude. Not every1 enters my sch being outspoken. So many of them are softspoken, and this envt encourages pple to come out of the hermit shell and speak up when required. She may think that some pple talk crap. True lah sometimes, but it's not always negative. She mentioned that pple speak up for the sake for participation pts. Yeah, that's a great incentive isn't it, but anyway students are mostly not rewarded for talking crap, but only for intellectual contribution. But I feel that at least pple try to contribute, and thruout the years hopefully gain experience and be able to speak intelligently and confidently at the end of the 4 years. I'm not impressed of her inability to accept a new/ different pedagogy that has been beneficial to others but not to herself. Perhaps she didn't mean it that way, but her tone was like that. eh, nus pple, if u noe her, help me talk sense into her. Haha..